


Those Three Little Words

by auselysium



Category: Holby City
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 01:45:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: Dom says "I love you" for the last first time.





	Those Three Little Words

It’s such a simple sentiment, really. Each word is pithy and concise, vowel laden yet monosyllabic. A basic subject-verb-direct object construction to the sentence that even a child could construct.

Yet there is something glorious is those three little words. The apex every relationship hopes to reach. Saved for the most dramatic moments in films, set again and again to song. They are the only ones that matter, in the end. Accept for substitutions. Not “I’ve fallen” or “I’m in”.

Just the three. The statement. The proclamation that still somehow begs an answer.

So you’d think, for all its importance and axis tilting affect, one would remember the first time you say them.

Not those first iterations, echoed with a toothless grin, the “l” sounding like a “w”, to your mum or dad. Nor those times you’d scribble those words with a learning hand into a a never sent note to a classmate who makes you blush.

But the first time when you say it, face to face, heart to heart, with all the reverence it deserves. With romance. With a flutter in your stomach and heat in your cheeks the desperate wish that they’ll say it back.

Dom can remember the _who_ but not the _when_. Examples but not the original. Not the _very_ first. He feels jilted by that somehow.

Instead he is reminded of wintertime, his shoulders pinched up to his ears against the cold, because being out here shivering was better than being inside that Panto show his mum had dragged him to anyway. Matt, home from uni on winter holiday, had looked like some sort of idol. He was older, prouder, more experienced. He gave Dom so many of his firsts.

He’d taken a drag on his cigarette and leaned in, covering Dom’s mouth with his, and breathed. The smoke from his lungs had fill Dom’s and it had felt rebellious and intimate and sexy as hell.

The three words had drifted out from Dom’s lips, along with the smoke, on the exhale.

Even when Matt made overtures about not being quite so serious when he went back to school, Dom had still meant it, to the extent his teenage heart could understand the meaning, when he said it.

Matt had flung his around Dom’s neck, the cigarette still lit between his gloved hands. “You too, Darren.”

Imperfect promises by a boy with a different name.

He remembers when Kyle had said it first, way too soon, his eyes so wide and bright blue while they were snuggled in bed together.

“You don’t have to say anything back.” He’d immediately gone into damage control mode, hands up in protection. “I mean, I get it if you don’t…”

Dom had cut him off with a kiss, letting his body speak words he didn’t know how to say or if he felt. Kyle had never said it again and Dom had only said it in an act of final, vicious desperation. Flung out along with a marriage proposal that was never going to be accepted. But as the clock ticked towards midnight of a new year, Dom had said those three words anyway, because if he hadn’t it would mean all his flaws were real.

Paris.

Isaac’s hand on the small of his back as they watched the sun set next to the Eiffel tower. Things had been so good and the day, so romantic. Dom had said it, finally understanding why it could be such a momentous thing, and Isaac’s eyes had softened. His body had curled and he’d said it back.

But that was before those three little words became weapons for Isaac to use, the hope of their true meaning causing so many hidden bruises. That was before Dom would say it to him in hopes this time Isaac might actually hear, might actually believe. Might be enough to still his hand.

What twisted, malignant words they had been in Isaac’s mouth. So many wasted firsts.

These thoughts flash through his mind in a matter of moments as he watches Lofty make breakfast in his pajamas. He’s singing a song in that hidden-talent voice of his, the range of a tenor with the timbre of a baritone. Toast pops out of the toaster with a ping and Lofty’s song is cut off by a litany of “Ow, ow, ow, ow, shit,” when he grabs the browned bread too soon and rushes to get it onto a plate.

Dom can’t help but laugh and Lofty turns at the sound.

“Morning,” he says, loading up a knife with butter. “Coffee’s on and breakfast is almost ready.” He turns back to his toast and his humming.

Dominic likes the way Lofty looks so familiar in his flat. Part of the fixtures. It’s been at least three weeks, maybe longer, since he woke up on his own. He likes that too.

 _No_ , Dom things. _Not 'like'_. It’s more than that and he’s known it for a while now. He’s nearly blurted it out half a dozen times already (when Lofty brought him a coffee the other day halfway through the shift from hell, as his hands had worked through the kinks in Dom’s shoulders while they watched Strictly, last night his heart racing and eyes aflame, their bodies locked in rhythm) that this is his chance to say it properly. And his chance to remember it.

So he stops again, savors. Imprints the moment. He moves around the table where Lofty has already laid out honey and jams, a small pitcher of cream for Dom’s coffee. He takes Lofty into his arms from behind, back to chest and tucks his face into the crook of Lofty’s neck, taking in the warmth of his skin, the way the scent of Dom’s shampoo clings to Lofty’s curls.

With gentle pressure to Lofty’s waist, the other man turns and Dom kisses him, deep and slow, languid tongue and spit.  It suggests of the bedroom, of aching never ending want.

Lofty rolls his lips into his mouth as Dom pulls back, an adorably befuddled grin on his face. “Blimey,” he says, “It’s only toast.”

Dom laughs again. “That wasn't about the toast.”

“No?” Lofty’s eyebrows quirk.

“No," Dom demurs.  "There’s just something I’ve been meaning to tell you. For a while now.”

Dom feel the heat in his cheeks rise and shimmer of electricity course through his veins. He files that sensation away for safe keeping, lifts his eyes and says those three little words.

Lofty goes still, his face caught somewhere between a look of wonder and a look of concentration. As if he’s trying to bookmark this moment as well.

And that’s when Dom realizes that it doesn’t matter that he can’t remember his first or that other times utterances have been taken in vain, because this time - this last first time - is the only time that matters. The only time where he, Dominic Copeland, truly means the words with every fiber of his being - with maturity and hard-won certainty. Where they are laced with promises of forever.

“Do you have any idea the number of times I’ve had to bite my tongue these past few weeks so I didn’t blurt that out?”

“Really?” Dom grins, his nose crinkling.

“I didn’t want to say if first, in case you thought it was too soon or…”

Lfoty steps in the closer, filling the impossible space between them eve more completely. He takes Dom face in his hands, thumbs over cheekbones. He tilts his head, resting his brow on Dom’s.

“Cause my god, Dom,” he whispers. “You have no idea…”

Then Lofty replies, offering the hoped for reply, the only acceptable variant and turns those three little words to four.

**Author's Note:**

> I may have fucked around with when Isaac and Dom said ILY. And maybe Kyle too...whatever.


End file.
